Students assist in ‘sacred spaces’ tour

Students assist in ‘sacred spaces’ tour

Skidmore students who over the last year researched Saratoga’s “sacred spaces”—historic
churches, temples, cemeteries—took their stations as guides in a recent walking tour
hosted by the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation.

Sara Gross led tours of Greenridge Cemetery

“History on the hoof” is how Jordana Dym describes the new course in which her students
learned and practiced public history—from interviewing archivists to researching city
registers and maps to analyzing and shaping data for use by citizens and policymakers.
“They brought intellectual rigor as well as a lot of creativity to their projects,
moving from architectural histories to a narrative that placed their findings into
broader historical context,” she said.

“As volunteers, the class enjoyed offering Saratoga community members a new perspective
on familiar places,” she continued. “It was a great way to help students connect their
internships with their studies.”

From hours of poring over documents in the public library’s Saratoga Room, church
storage closets, and Skidmore’s special collections, and from scores of interviews
with historians, clerics, congregants, and caretakers, the students wrote papers,
created a Web site, prepared oral presentations, and even worked up a few internship proposals.

Students in the spring installment of the course presented their findings at a public
meeting in early March at the Saratoga Springs Public Library. They also collaborated
with local journalist and historian Field Horne on a new book and wrote articles on
their assigned sites for The Saratogian.

Following are the students who participated in the course last fall, this spring,
or both: